Week #15: Failure to Communicate

I'm grouping Saturday into this, because I may not get a chance to post anything tomorrow in the final hours before departure. In that case, this will be the final post before the walk starts. Don't panic; despite the account that follows, I'm actually not ill-prepared for the trip.

The first preparation for this walk was a weekend spent testing search and rescue comms gear. We used radios and mobile phones, but no sat phones. After this week, I think I know why. There are two sat phone networks available in Australia, one which is affordable and one used only by those with extreme government subsidies or a seven digit salary. It took half a week and a lot of preparation time going through various satellite phones to work out that they shared a common problem; all of them used the network I could afford to connect to for a month without selling my kidneys on the black market. This didn't seem like a problem at the time, but the biggest ones never do...

Half of my week's moving and preparation time was lost to attempting to connect various satellite phones before I gave up. Secondhand phones had been a mistake, I decided; it was time to cut my losses and try another tactic. Normally I wouldn't bother, but we do need to be able to coordinate with walkers meeting us halfway and drivers picking up those leaving before the end. All I really need to be able to do is let people know which campsite we've settled into each night, something a full satellite phone is over-qualified to do.

A new solution appeared. I had heard of Spot GPS Messengers and Spot Connects before. They're GPS units which relay short messages and GPS coordinates through to pre-selected recipients via satellites. Essentially, push a button when you get to camp and it'll tell people where you are. Press a different button and it'll send a different message along with those coordinates. Another one calls for help from your family, while the last forwards straight through to emergency services. The variation between the two types is that the GPS Messenger sends messages that you set beforehand, while the Spot Connect links to a smartphone via bluetooth to send custom messages. A Spot Connect seemed like introducing a whole new range of points of failure. A GPS Messenger though, sounded perfect. Without the full range of features on most satellite phones, they're pretty cheap, lightweight and their batteries last for months.

By this time, it was Thursday and I had only a few days left before the walk started on Monday. I found one GPS Messenger available for sale in Hobart, snatched it up on Friday morning and opened a satellite account. I set aside some of my remaining preparation and moving time to set it up and sent off my first test message. The lights flashed, acquiring GPS coordinates from one satellite network and then sending them through another. Twenty minutes passed and no sign of the message. I tried again with no luck, and then tried customer service, a mobile phone somewhere in Australia set to redirect to a call centre in the US.

Don't panic, it's just a calibration problem. All I had to do was restart it and leave it in the open for twenty minutes while it set itself up for the local satellite service. Seemed strange, but I gave it a try. Further trials yielded no results and the call centre had closed for the day. They were due to reopen at midnight, and I set about cleaning my old house until then.

Midnight came around and my call soon followed. The advice for fixing the problems grew steadily stranger and more inconvenient. Firstly I had to send a message in one location with clear view of the sky (a process that takes 20 minutes of waiting while it tries to connect) and then I had to move to a different location and try again within ten minutes. The flashing lights at both indicated the messages had been sent, though neither arrived at the phone in my pocket. So, after around an hour of jogging around at 1am and then sitting in the chill Tasmanian spring air, I returned to the house and called them again. Clearly my account settings were wrong. They checked them and lo and behold, I had put symbols in my contact phone number. For some crazy reason, I had thought +61 would precede the phone number! Oh, wait a minute... no after some explaining it was realised their computers had added this when I set my country. Matters didn't improve. After jumping through hoops for a while, even tracking down another set of lithium AAA batteries at 3am, I gave up and grabbed a couple of hours of sleep. Daylight makes everything better.

Satellite phones don't like daylight as much as I do, it would seem. Dawn did arrive, but it didn't bring any great wave of communication capabilities. Another conversation with the call centre and they decided my unit was faulty. No problems though, there was one I could swap it with in a store just over in Unley Road. I'd never heard of it but duly looked it up, only to discover the shop was actually in South Australia. Some careful explaining that I'm in Tasmania and this would be inconvenient clearly had no effect, as I was asked how long it would take me to drive to Unley Road. Why, no time at all. An hour in a car would get me there, getting out partway to take two flights.

"There's one in Devonport, how far away is that?"

Why, that would only take four hours to drive there, a couple of days to wait around until they were open and four hours to drive back. Easy!

"How long are you staying in Tasmania?"

I live here, which is why my account's address is in Tasmania.

"How far is it for you to drive to Adelaide?"

I gave up around then; clearly there's something incomprehensible about Australian geography and our blatant refusal to drive cars on water. I took to the internet, seeking a solution in its depths. Lo and behold, I found it. The problem isn't the device (although the pattern of indicator lights do indicate that it's faulty). The problem is that Tasmania is just too far south for satellite coverage.

That's right, the satellite phone network (advertised as covering another hundred kilometres or so south of Tasmania), actually falls short. Occasional bursts of signal make it through but nothing that the Spot's tiny antenna can use, nor (from what I've observed this past week) anything usable by a more conventional satellite phone to send a two character text message. So next time a mainlander tells me (as is their wont) that Tasmanians have no concept of large distances or being isolated, I'll just ask them whether any of the mainland is so remote that it's out of range of a worldwide satellite communication network*.

So, how are we going to communicate? There's dodgy reception on a few mountain peaks approaching the meeting points and that'll have to do us. Connectivity is intermittent, but is enough for sending an SMS. I never thought I'd say this, but it turns out that (in Tasmania at least) Telstra's restricted GSM network has better coverage than satellites. Considering how bad the GSM network in Tasmania is, that's really saying something about the satellites.

*Yes, I have been waiting years for a suitable response to this comment, frequently used by a few mainlanders I know. Though if any of them read this blog, they probably won't say it again.

Weekend #15: Moving

Second last weekend of preparation is now complete. What did I do with it? Well I dehydrated a few things, obviously, before packing the drier away for a while. It’s work is done for now, though it may reappear briefly in the next few days. I made a groundsheet for the damn sexy tent*, a bright red one to tie on top of the otherwise well-camouflaged tent in the unlikely event of an emergency mid-walk.

Other than that, the weekend was spent starting the move out of my house. Unfortunately, while an emergency is unlikely, there's a certainty that my lease runs out mid-walk, so I have to do all my moving before heading off. There is no way that the amount of stuff I’m taking out of this house could have physically fit into it in the first place. Of this, I am absolutely certain. It makes me wonder exactly where all these boxes did come from, but certainly not from here!

*If you’re wondering what the damn sexy tent is, you’ve obviously been skipping posts. Stop skipping posts!

Week #14: Some food, but not much else to report

Second last week of preparation and last week of work before the walk… Tracked down some quick-dry shorts and a long-sleeved shirt, marvelling as I did that I refuse to spend money on expensive fashionable clothes, but hardly baulk at $50 on a pair of shorts.

Almost all of the food is now dehydrated. A few more ingredients from Sarah to dry and the drier’s efforts will be complete. No doubt it’s looking forward to the break, since it’s been running flat-out for weeks…

It turns out that 160 serves of cooked meals takes a lot of time to cook and then return to a dried state afterwards. It’s meant that our kitchen has been filled with delicious smells for weeks, although still not being able to eat them has been a form of mild torture. Why oh why didn’t I prepare 170 serves and enjoy a few along the way?

Through no effort of my own, I now have a new Whisperlite stove. Work gave me one as a resignation retirement present on Friday. There’s something satisfying about saying I’ve retired, and having it be true. I’ve finished engineering and have no intention of going back to it, retiring from that career with no new job lined up… the fact that I may find a few career path someday is entirely irrelevant.

I feel like there should be more to add here, but really it has just been a week of trying to finish off all my jobs at work and dehydrating food in the evenings. There’s nothing else to add to that.

Weekend #14: Irish and Food

It wasn’t the most productive of weekends, not in terms of preparing for the walk anyway. I dehydrated some more food on Saturday, but spent most of the day loitering around a hall in North Hobart.

There, drawn in through the cunning method of mentioning dancing, I was signed up for an Irish dancing competition. I’d never competed as a dancer before, since I just do it as a social and fun activity. My introduction to the other side of dancing wasn’t a short event; it was an entire day, 8.30 in the morning through until 5. I may as well have been at work!

Of course, I wasn’t dancing for the entire day. Irish dances take only a couple of minutes each and I only had to dance seven times throughout the day. There were different dances, skill levels and age groups, and – with up to twenty dancers competing for each – numerous heats required to get through us all. Most of the day was spent loitering backstage, watching other dancers from the shadowy back seats or practicing steps with my teammates.

Fortuitously, cameras aren’t allowed in most Irish dancing competitions. Something to do with being allowed to question the judge’s decision, I assume. Thus no photos will be appearing here showing me fumble my way through the dances. And if photos were still taken of some of my events… well they still won’t be appearing here.

Sunday brought more food dehydration, but all in all I was getting closer and closer to completion, and the remaining meals had been neglected as the time-consuming, fiddly ones. Come days end, there wasn’t much to show for my labours.

Week #13: Another week of food.

Well, I took down the damn sexy tent on Monday morning and it was with some regret that I went off to the airport, bade it farewell at check-in and moped my way back to Hobart. Even when I had the tent back, it wasn't the same tucked away in a pack as it had been lying out in the Adelaide sun.

So... maybe I shouldn't be allowed to use tents.


The week was spent buying, cooking and dehydrating food. I had to spend a lot of time buying it because I could only fit so much in my bag for the ride home each time. It really is pretty bulky and heavy before monsieur dehydrator and I get around to turning it into proper hiking food.

The menu was finalised and industrial mass-production of tiny shriveled vegetables, different coloured powders and strange containers of what looks like dog biscuits began. I've been preparing bits and pieces for a while but now the dehydrator is running more or less non-stop, only pausing to change its setting to match the latest load of trays.

I think I mentioned before that there are going to be eight different main meals, cycled through every eight days along the way to give us our requisite four weeks, plus some emergency meals.
Here's the menu:

• Wallaby Chilli Con Carne with Polenta and yoghurt (guacamole having failed)
• Sweet and Sour Vegetables with Rice
• Vegetable Curry with Rice
• Moroccan Spiced Couscous with Vegetables
• Wallaby Bolognese with Spaghetti and suspicious-dehydrated-cheese-stuff
• Sweet Tagine with Moroccan Fruit and Nut Rice
• Spicy Noodle Soup
• Aloo Palak and Daal with Rice

Also doing a few desserts. They won't be every day and there isn't as much variety in them. Also, two of them would only be done immediately after a food drop.

• Passionfruit Cheesecake
• Mango and Coconut rice pudding
• Choc Ripple Cake
• Honey Dumplings

I spent some time working out the cheesecake, grinding, drying and mixing ingredients until I had produced a recipe I was satisfied with. Then, what did I find on the supermarket shelves the very next day? Powdered cheesecake filling, just add milk. Oh well. I ended up making an adaptation of their mix and my recipe. It's tasty and lighter than the one I was planning, but it does detract somewhat from the achievement...

I now have a pack-based charging setup running. My 12W Sunload fabric solar panel arrived, and is possibly a slight overkill but it is capable of running the Unipal charger under overcast conditions. Tested with light cloud cover at 6pm, it was powerful enough to charge my camera battery. The panel clips onto the pack (and generates enough off ambient lighting while facing away from the sun to still work while walking north, provided it's a reasonably bright day), charger goes in top pocket.

The fabric for my groundsheet arrived as well. I'll hack that into pieces and sew it up soon. That's about it for now.

Week #12 and Weekend #13: Adelaide and Sexy Tents

This post is about dancing, preparing food and damn sexy tents... Actually it's mostly going to be about the sexy tents. I've written about preparing food and dancing before and there's not much to say there that wouldn't be a repetition of the old.

Early last week, I took delivery of a box from the US. Significantly sooner than the predicted 7 days, my tent had arrived. I resisted the urge to set it up, instead packing it away for use when next I found myself camping. When oh when would this be?

Friday, as it turned out, after a few days of cooking and dehydrating.

One of my habits, which I shall write more about another time, is journeying to small towns in Tassie or across the seas to the distant "mainland" for a few days. Almost without fail, it's because the town is playing host to a festival. I'll turn up with a complement of kilts replacing my pack's normal contents of wet weather gear, pitch a tent and spend a few days dancing until my feet hurt and listening to music.

This weekend's town of choice was Willunga, a couple of hours' train and bus ride south of Adelaide. I swapped my weight vest for a pack and toted it across kraken-infested waters to reach South Australia. A while spent exploring the city (my travels had never taken me to the state before), some time on public transport and I was faced with a patch of empty grass. This seemed in dire need of filling, and it was time for the tent to make its appearance. It was pretty quick to set up once I'd figured out what was what. Once it was set, there was really only one description that seemed appropriate: Sexy... That's right, the Jannu is a damned sexy tent.

Let me start with the fabric. It feels like it'll tear if you glare at it because it's so ridiculously thin and light. But it doesn't. Actually, it's one of the tougher tent fabrics around. It doesn't feel like it can stop a gentle summers breeze though, certainly not storms!

The tent poles are on the outside of the tent, which perplexed me until I worked out that this serves as an extra frame to allow the rather clever ventilation system in the roof. I love that ventilation system! If you're familiar with venturi pumps, it's essentially one of them designed to work with wind striking the tent in any direction (also, apologies for the horribly crude diagram I'm about to attach). If you're not familiar with a venturi pump, please refer to my amazingly brilliant diagram. The ventilation opening in the top of the fly can be adjusted from inside the main tent without even stirring from your sleeping bag.

OK, moving right along.

It's a few details that really made the tent. While setting it up, I kept stopping and looking at what I was doing because I would realise that some tiny detail that annoyed me on other tents had been fixed on this one. The pegs have a loop of cord on the end of each one. Those fancy new extruded alloy pegs, so easy to put in and without the tendency to bend on contact with the ground? They're on most tents now and are also almost impossible to remove simply because it's hard to get a grip on them. That loop of cord sounds ridiculous, frivolous, until you reach down to pull out a peg. The peg-out points on the fly are adjustable, so when you get to that final peg and discover there's a rock there, which you can't peg through, you adjust the length of the strap rather than moving the tent. The fly opens on the side of the tent, so you don't need to crawl over packs to get out, or zips off completely to make a small groundsheet where you can sit sheltered from the wind while preparing breakfast... I think I'll use an actual groundsheet but I appreciate the sentiment.

It's also a very spacious tent. A lot of two-man tents require the two sleeping mats to be stacked on top of each other and still don't have space to fit so much as a torch inside as well. Provided you didn't mind being cosy, three people would fit in the Jannu with ease.

All in all, seriously impressed.


I didn't just sit admiring the tent all weekend. Although it was a struggle, I got up eventually each morning to wander around the festival, listen to some great music and do some dancing, maybe snack on some of the tasty food they had on site. I would, of course, return periodically to simply sit beside the tent, admire its form in the Adelaide sun, stroke it... Ahem. As I was saying, nice tent.

I would attach photos, but I'm afraid of the jealousies that might arise in the community at large and that people would soon hunt me down to kill me for my tent.

PS. OK, you got me. I would attach photos of the tent if they weren't sitting on the other memory card a few suburbs away. I'll add them in an edit later.

Edit: Happy now? Photo attached.